10 South Korean Startups Powering Into 2018

South Korea’s startup scene has seen a drought of emerging unicorns - the last two $1 billion valued unlisted companies were crowned in 2015 - but a handful of strong startups have been building up momentum as the ecosystem continues to mature.

Meanwhile, the flurry of investments into virtual reality startups back in 2016 are finally churning out results, with a handful of VR startups hitting the market. And despite the uncertainties over cryptocurrency regulations, blockchain startups are building away. Here are just 10 South Korean startups powering into 2018.

Hyperconnect's social video app Azar is like chatroulette of the '90s meets mobile.

Hyperconnect Facebook

Hyperconnect has brought back the chatroulette of the ‘90s for mobile with its live chat matching app Azar, and - despite my suspicions - is making serious revenue through in-app purchases that allow users to pick their matches by region and gender. Nearly 30 billion matches have been made since its 2015 launch.

It’s commonly used as video Tinder, but it can (I guess) also facilitate language and cultural exchange. The company expects $100 million in revenue this year and has all the ingredients for an IPO.

Medibloc is a much-talked-about medical logistics blockchain startup that wants to create a medical record database on blockchain, uniting multiple hospitals’ records on one secure, decentralized ledger.

Cofounded by a former dentist and a doctor, the company raised $30 million in an initial coin offering based in Gibraltar last month, and has formed alliances with Oracle Medical Group and Kyung Hee University Dental Hospital. The platform will be launched by late 2018.

South Korea is struck by a “well-being” craze, but healthy eating is tough to do affordably. Market Kurly, an ecommerce platform, has seized the opportunity to sell organic food products on the cheap - and insanely fast, with fresh goods delivered to your door by the next morning.

It’s competing with major department stores, with retail giant Shinsegae said to be considering acquiring it.

The company says annual revenue tripled last year to an estimated 53 billion won. With 26.5 billion won ($24.7 million) in funding and a 500 billion won ($470 million) valuation, Kurly reportedly aims to file an IPO this year.

Zigzag brings South Korea’s fast fashion and established “gray market” of non-mainstream fashion lines to a single ecommerce platform, which is now a go-to for over 75% of Korean women in their 20s. The two-year-old startup says it has amassed over 10 million downloads - about 20% of South Korea's population - and 80% annual transaction growth by offering over 2,700 online retailers’ items on one portal, optimizing the shopping experience with personal recommendation algorithms. Running on 10 billion won ($9.3 million) in investment, transaction volume reached 350 billion won last year.

This year it plans to build out its service for the retailers and reportedly achieve profitability.

Star player Ryu Jehong waves to the crowd after his team won a preseason match at the Blizzard Arena in Burbank, Calif., Dec. 8, 2017.

Robert Paul for Blizzard Entertainment

Esports in South Korea are serious business, and KSV wants to groom teams to become international champions. The startup, launched in Silicon Valley and Seoul by some founders of entertainment company Kabam, launched just six months ago but has already kicked up dust in the global gaming scene. Its team Seoul Dynasty is a favorite to win the “Overwatch League” championship this season, and last December it acquired Samsung Galaxy’s “League of Legends” team, which won the 2017 World Championship.

The startup aims to shake up the esports scene by introducing a “much more global, tech and media savvy mindset for how we develop and market our players and brands,” according to co-founder and managing director Michael Li.

The three-year-old VR startup Looxid Labs is measuring brainwaves and eye movement to read users’ emotions. It envisions applications for its technology in education, health care, military training and consumer research. Founded in 2015 by brain engineer Brian Yongwook Chae, it kicks off preorders for its LooxidVR mobile headset in February.

South Korea’s job matching sector has long been fragmented, but major contender Wanted Lab is on its way to domination. Founded in 2015, the company is a referral recruiting platform that brings a still-offline headhunting industry online, giving users a referral bonus for connecting their friends with well-matched jobs.

Wanted has been breaking ground in Japan with its brand ReferMe launched last April. The startup says monthly revenue has grown 256% on-year since 2015, and has amassed a corporate client base of over 1,700 companies in Korea and Japan including Facebook, Uber, Ebay and Softbank.

Backed by a 10 billion won ($9.4 million) investment last year, it is gearing to expand into greater Asia including Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan.

SendBird is a chat API for over 6,000 apps that reach 5 million users globally. It plugs the chat function into apps ranging from banks to ecommerce, including Go-Jek, Nexon and LG. With offices in Korea and the U.S., its service is able to support 1 million concurrent users at the same time. Backed by a recent $16 million investment last December, the company says it plans to expand its workforce rapidly in 2018 in engineering, sales and marketing.

Even as tech-savvy South Koreans lead the world in internet and smartphone penetration, companies are surprisingly hard to convince to adapt to new ways. Exhibit A is the cloud, with USB sticks and in-house servers still in high demand. (Exhibit B is productivity software, like Jandi, Korea’s answer to Slack.)

B2B cloud startup Bespin is dragging those companies into 2018 - rather convincingly, converting over 200 enterprise customers in Korea and China since its founding in 2016. It claims the distinction of being the only East Asian company named to the Gartner Magic Quadrant, a global list of top enterprise cloud service providers. Backed by $49 million in funding and over 300 employees, it expands to expand its client base five-fold this year.

After the wakeup call of AlphaGo, South Korea realizes machine learning is a must. But as the talent is still in short supply for the emerging technology, Xbrain is making a machine-learning-in-a-box named Daria whose predictive analytics can be applied to SMEs across various industries, especially for mobile apps with lots of data.

With an easy interface, it allows users with no coding or programming experience to organize their data for machine learning. The two-year-old startup has $1 million in funding and two beta versions of its cloud-based machine learning software, and now it's preparing to take off the wraps. After one final beta with 140 companies in March, the world can welcome Daria by year-end.